Museums and exhibitions in Dubrovnik

The museum integrated into the Fortress of St John presents very vividly and lively the varied and successful history of old Ragusa. Here seafaring is paid the respect due to it, for the city would never have attained its significance had there been no shipowners, seafarers and engineers. All of them are honoured with the exhibition of engravings, paintings and - from the nearer past - photographs. Alongside these, by means of scale ship models, one can sense how cramped and meagre life on deck must have been. Sea charts and bills of lading illustrate the enormous organisational effort of the expeditions, and by means of the navigational instruments one can gauge the truly considerable progress in this economic factor. In general the rule is: the modern age is upstairs, on the floor below it the 17th and 18th centuries, and at sea level an aquarium. Visits are possible daily except Mondays from 9 to 14 hours, a visit to the aquarium from 8 to 20 hours.

When the density of population continued to rise in the 16th century and an attack from outside became ever more likely, Dubrovnik had to face the possibility of a famine. In response, 15 grain silos were cut into the rock at the end of Ulica Od Rupe, which today - the food supply of the Croats being reasonably secure after all - serve as the Ethnographic Museum. Relics from antiquity and from the building of the city right into the Middle Ages can be examined here daily from 9:00 to 14:00.

The Serbian Orthodox cathedral Srpska Pravonslavna Crkva in the south of the old town houses Dubrovnik's renowned icon museum. Here, daily between 9 and 13:00, you can marvel at the collections of depictions of saints which have made their way here from the nearer surroundings but also from Greece and Russia. As a special highlight the museum also exhibits icons from Byzantine times.

In the Rector's Palace is the city museum, which has made it its task to make the history of Dubrovnik and the living conditions of each period accessible by means of various artefacts. Here you will find medieval armour and coins, portraits of famous sons of the city and likewise elegant furniture, old city maps and everyday objects from all classes. Beyond that, the museum management also regularly organises special exhibitions and open-air concerts in the inner courtyard - here you will also see the Greek god Asclepius at an alchemical experiment. This sculpture arose out of the conviction of some Ragusans, who were sure that the birthplace of this god had been precisely here, on the site of today's Dubrovnik. On the upper floor the reconstruction of the Rector's Palace then awaits you, as it might have been furnished in the 17th-18th centuries: beside the rector's private bedchamber lies the picture gallery in which paintings from the 15th century are presented, while in the Rococo hall art from the 17th and 18th centuries is exhibited. A particularly interesting exhibit is to be found in the rector's cabinet: a mechanical clock that measures time without hands - by rotation of the entire dial.